Third footnote to the post titled “The Psychocentric View of Man”

Freud argued that the “pleasure principle” – which he considered to be the guiding principle of psychic life – is eventually replaced by the “reality principle” or the realization of dying before dying. When restricted, the drive for pleasure is most intense. But when unrestricted, the drive for pleasure diminishes, and as a result, the “reality principle” sets in and takes over psychic life. But at the same time, Freud could not decide whether the libidinal instinct coexisted with the death instinct, or whether the libidinal instinct was the only instinct which drove psychic life. Life would go on even after the setting in of the reality principle, and what kept life going even after the setting in of the reality principle was the sexual instinct or the libidinal instinct. Nevertheless, both Freud and others were left groping for answers elsewhere, which meant groping for answers outside of the metes and bounds of modern science. And in the end, we are left with mysticism to furnish an answer.